[TenTec] Orion2 Firmware Update

[Dr. Gerald N. Johnson]

Yet one of the problems with the Orion II is limited memory and 
processor capability, compounded for the Orion with less of each. Where 
the desired PC for a Flex radio has a gigabyte or two of ram with a CPU 
running with a 2.5 or 3+ GHz clock speed, with a dedicated processor for 
the video (think gaming computer) and a 32 or 64 bit memory interface, 
preferably 64 bit. It might be that one option for Orions could be an 
analog interface to the external PC with I and Q from the detectors for 
the sweep section or after all the filters at 14 kHz audio so the Flex 
radio (as well as other codes) could be applied in the station PC. Thus 
enabling far greater computer power than the embedded hardware. Its 
likely the limits of the embedded hardware that make things interact in 
new versions of the firmware and that make correcting and adding so very 
difficult. The fast PC could then control the Orion through the 
conventional serial interface.

73, Jerry, K0CQ

On 4/16/2010 6:33 PM, Stuart Rohre wrote:
> It is much harder to have open source for the the code in the combined
> hardware type of radio the  Orion and Orion II represent, than say the
> "front end" plus a computer and Software Defined code of the Flex radios.
>
> Even the Flex that contains a PC is radio plus computer just all in one
> box.  And on the flip side, I know some of the folks who build Flex
> radios, and the problems they have had to fix with hardware, and
> difficulties getting parts such as band toroids is kind of like
> listening to Orion software woes.  I have a friend who now has a cottage
> industry of winding band cores for Flex.  They could not get the quality
> they needed from offshore manufacturing.
>
> -Stuart Rohre
> K5KVH
>
>
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